Friday, 26 November 2010

Last Sunday (21st Nov) at City Academy I went down to Bristol Celebrates festival. It was a great event to celebrate different religions and cultures. I volunteered as a steward for some of the time and I had a great day, it was really inspiring to meet so many different people who want to do positive things across cultural and religious boundaries.

Do you sleep in your hijab?

A group of young people from the Somali Development group had put on their own exhibition about wearing hijabs and I got to try out a hijab style. The girls said they get asked lots of questions by people about why they wear hijabs and decided to make this exhibition to answer these questions. One girl explained to me that she doesn’t always wear hijab, but she feels different when she does. We had a interesting chat about the idea of being modest and how women should be respected. (and in case you’re wondering… no they take them off at home and don’t sleep in them!)

Youth together from different faiths + cultures

Bristol Active Youth Service (BAYS) a youth service run by young people also came along to Bristol Celebrates and had their own display, it was pretty cool to hear about what they are doing. So far they have set up study clubs and youth activities and hope to get their own premises soon. What is amazing about this is it has been set-up by young people from Easton and Eastville for themselves and it has really inspired me about what we as young people can do!

The aim of the UNITY project is to promote cultural understanding and to celebrate the diversity that exists across the city. UNITY is about celebrating what’s at the heart of Bristol’s communities and we can only do this by working together with local groups and young people.

UNITY is currently working on a Citizenship Foundation and Mediabox funded project that brings together young refugees/asylum seekers with Bristolian youth to find out more about each other and develop social action projects to improve their community.